PORT TOWNSEND — Cynthia Daily’s husband Conner asked this week about Christmas cookies.
Will she be baking them? Possibly.
But first, Daily has a northern flicker, a moon-faced barn owl and a couple of Anna’s hummingbirds to watch over.
All were injured — by a cat, a car and a window, respectively — and brought to her place, the nonprofit Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue center.
A licensed wildlife rehabilitator, Daily is caring for about two dozen birds, hoping to set them free again.
These days, she is also telling their stories.
“I try very hard to not to be too cheesy,” she said, “but I’m trying to share acts of kindness,” committed by people across and beyond the North Olympic Peninsula.
On Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue’s Facebook page, Daily posted last Saturday about the man who, driving home from work, saw a barn owl stumbling in a roadside ditch.
He made eye contact; the owl was unable to fly away, and it was dragging its left wing and foot.
The man followed it as it stumbled into the woods, and he managed to capture the bird in a blanket.
As he Googled “raptor rescue,” he found Daily’s organization.
Wildlife rehabilitator Cynthia Daily of Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue creates “adoption” gift certificates for the songbirds, seabirds, eagles and owls at her recovery center. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/Peninsula Daily News)
Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue center is not open to the public, but a phone call to Daily’s hotline, 360-379-0802, summons her. Injured birds may also be brought to Wild Birds Unlimited at 275953 U.S. Highway 101 in Gardiner — a drop-off point, said WBU co-owner Christie Lassen, where Daily comes to pick up a bird or Lassen transports it to the rescue center outside Port Townsend.
Guidance in what to do when someone finds an injured bird can be found at discoverybaywildbirdrescue.com.
Daily and her crew hope to nurse their charges back to health — and back to the sky. They released two young eagles into habitat along the Skagit River — a thrill — earlier this month.
Also recently sent on their way were a green-winged teal, a double-crested cormorant, a pigeon guillemot and a surf scoter, a cadre fully recovered after their time at the center.
In this final week before Christmas, Daily is preparing “adoption” certificates for donors. In the spirit of environmental stewardship, people can make tax-deductible gifts to the rehab center and receive the certificates along with photos of the hummingbird, seabird or songbird they’ve chosen from the website.
Contributions pay for food — which can cost $80 to $100 per month for eagles — and specialized equipment such as the oxygen concentrator used to care for critically injured patients.
Daily reported the barn owl, a female, is improving every day.
A barred owl, also struck by a car, was brought in, its eyes closed and head tilted. Two weeks of convalescence later, the dark eyes are open and the owl is eating on its own.
Joseph Molotsky, 18, assists Daily in the care of these animals. As a volunteer, he puts in 10 to 12 hours a week at the center.
“I love birds. I always have,” he said, lifting a slender flicker from its bed. The bird was cat-caught, and it was brought in from Sequim on Monday with a broken wing.
Molotsky, a high school senior, said time at the center “beats homework.” It’s also a way to give something back to the natural world, he said.
The rescue center is busier than ever, Daily added, not only with the incoming wounded but also with its permanent residents, owls, hawks and eagles whose injuries were too severe to allow them to live in the wild. They are educators and ambassadors, she said — yet they can’t engage with the community as they once did.
With no school assemblies or holiday festivals, Daily, Molotsky and other volunteers haven’t had a chance to show people these raptors up close since last March, when they held an educational event at Wild Birds Unlimited.
People are still contributing and adopting, Daily said, and for that she is grateful.
Those acts of kindness haven’t ceased during the pandemic.
“We are an every bird place,” the website and the driveway sign say, and Daily adds she’s passionate about what she does.
“I love seeing them go from broken to healed.”
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or [email protected].
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